1954 NERC Season

The 1953 NERC Season was the 9th season of the North-Eastern Runty Championship, the first professional runty league in the world. The league's 10 teams all faced each other home and away for a duration of 18 weeks.

In the Champions Cup, the Hempstead Clippers defeated The Bronx Bears to capture their first title since 1946.

Regular Season
The NERC’s 9th season began on April 24, 1954, with all 10 of the league’s teams playing at the traditional 3:00 time slot. Like each previous season, the regular season consisted of each team playing each other home-and-away, for a total of 18 games.

For the most part, the opening week was pretty low-scoring. Only 2 teams scored more than 30 points. First, Boston crushed the Scholars 43-23, next The Archers started their title defense with a 32-21 win over the Clippers. Brooklyn came out as 1-point victors over Staten Island, and the Bears edged the Racers 25-23. Lastly, the Knights defeated the Panthers in a 22-21 defensive battle.

GAMES OF THE WEEK
Week 1: Westchester 23-25 the Bronx

Week 2: Boston 37-33 Buffalo

Week 3: Manhattan 31-28 Boston

Week 4: Westchester 33-29 Brooklyn

Week 5: Manhattan 23-24 New York

Week 6: Boston 29-28 Brooklyn

Week 7: Hempstead 31-26 the Bronx

Week 8: Westchester 25-29 Buffalo

Week 9: Hempstead 30-27 Brooklyn

Week 10: Manhattan 35-30 Hempstead

Week 11: Buffalo 28-27 Boston

Week 12: Westchester 26-31 Hempstead

Week 13: Columbia Alumni 25-29 Staten Island

Week 14: Staten Island 29-32 the Bronx

Week 15: Hempstead 29-28 Buffalo

Week 16: Staten Island 28-27 Westchester

Week 17: New York 28-28 Brooklyn

Week 18: Westchester 27-23 Boston

1. THE BRONX BEARS

Leading Goalscorer: Lucas Sizemore (20)

Taking the coveted #1 seed were the Bronx Bears. They enjoyed an even better second half, which only saw them lose once. One major part of this run was fullback William Spalding, who broke out in the final 9 games. His physical style of defense helped the Bears escape from some close games. Lucas Sizemore kept the team’s goalscoring lead, scoring 12 goals in the final 9 games, compared to 8 in the first 9. The Bears also won all of their second half games against the 3 other playoff teams. The Bronx finished at 15-3, setting a record for most wins in a season.

2. MANHATTAN ARCHERS

Leading Goalscorer: Van German (24)

Moving one spot up to clinch home-field advantage were the Manhattan Archers. Their second half saw them play more defense-oriented, as both their points scored and points allowed totals went down. Despite their lower offense in the second half, their leading scorer Van German kicked over 60% of his 24 goals in the final 9 games. One thing that worried Archers supporters heading into the playoffs was that both of their second half losses came against other playoff teams, including their first round opponent (Westchester). The Archers finished at 13-5.

3. HEMPSTEAD CLIPPERS

Leading Goalscorer: Perseus Whitney (28)

Moving down from first to third were the Hempstead Clippers. Unlike Manhattan, the second half of the year saw both their points scored and points allowed totals go up. Unfortunately for them, their defense worsening was much more noticeable than their offense increasing. They made many lazy errors leading to scores against, as well as lost games. Despite all this though, They were fighting for home-field advantage through to the final week, where they just missed out based on point differential. Perseus Whitney continued dominating offensively. Hempstead finished 13-5, just 3 points below the Archers for point differential.

4. WESTCHESTER RACERS

Leading Goalscorer: Joe Blake (36)

Holding on to the final playoff spot were the Westchester Racers. Their second half was almost a carbon copy of their first half, as they had the same record, and very similar offensive and defensive stats. Outstanding rookie Joe Blake continued to take the league by storm, finishing his first year with a league-record 36 goals. Pairing this with the Racer’s #1 defense (the only one to allow under 23 points per game), and they were looking like a very scary team to face in the playoffs. They finished at 12-6, 7.5 points above 5th place.

5. STATEN ISLAND ISLANDERS

Leading Goalscorer: Arnold Sutars (30)

Finishing in 5th and moving up 3 spots were the Islanders. Their second half was a vast improvement, and they looked like an entirely different team. The biggest contributor to this was their offense, which wasn’t fully dependent on Arnold Sutars like it had been to start. Interestingly, Despite him not having to do everything offensively, Sutars’ scoring totals increased by a good amount as well. This new confidence helped the Islanders go 6-3 over the second half of the year. Unfortunately for them, that wasn’t close to enough to make the playoffs, but was still something to build off of for 1955. They finished at 9-8-1.

6. BOSTON RIDERS

Leading Goalscorer: George Webb (24)

Finishing 6th were the Boston Riders, who missed the playoffs for the first time since 1950. Despite still having a good chance at the playoffs at the halfway point, they mainly played uninspired runty in the second half. They did manage to beat the Bears though, and were the only team to beat the Bears more than the Bears had beaten them. While analysts predicted that that win would light a spark to get them in the playoff hunt, they went 2-3 to close out a disappointing year. Boston finished at 8-9-1.

7. BUFFALO PANTHERS

Leading Goalscorer: Larry Hugh (11)

An already disappointing year for Buffalo became even more disappointing in the second half. Injuries kept piling up for them, leading to games where they had no real chance from the get-go. They didn’t do too terribly considering their inexperienced lineup, but they were still losing games that were must-wins for their playoff hopes. While finishing 7th wasn’t an ideal finish at all considering they were Champions Cup finalists in 1953, The team tried to use it as a learning year, hoping that they would come back stronger than ever in 1955. Buffalo finished at 7-11.

8. NEW YORK KNIGHTS

Leading Goalscorer: Perry Cisseaton (18)

It was another tough season for the Knights, who missed the playoffs for the fourth consecutive year. Analysts were really struggling to figure out just what was going wrong for them. Some said they didn’t have enough depth, while others said it was a team culture issue. Whatever it was, it was really plaguing the Knights, who won only two of their 9 second half games. They also finished with the second-worst offensive output, despite having some very good pieces up front. New York finished at 6-11-1.

9. BROOKLYN DEVILS

Leading Goalscorer: Teague Beaggin (17)

Analysts thought Brooklyn would play better in the second half of the year. Unfortunately for them, the complete opposite happened. It was like they ran out of gas. While their point differential was only -32 after 9 games, it went way down to triple digits over the last 9 games. While they got cut some slack for being a third-year expansion team, a collapse like that didn’t bring them much hope for future seasons. Brooklyn finished at 3-14-1, 1.5 points below their inaugural season.

10. COLUMBIA ALUMNI SCHOLARS

Leading Goalscorer: Gregory Kirk (26)

While their second half of the season was better than their first, the Scholars still played horribly. They still were dead last offensively and defensively, and they smashed the previous worst mark for point differential. Their only bright spot really was Gregory Kirk, who despite being one of the league’s smallest players, finished fourth in goals. If the Scholars, who were struggling financially, stayed in the NERC, he was looking like their future. Columbia Alumni finished at 2-16. Only the 1946 Islanders had seen a worse record throughout the NERC’s history.

Notable Events:
-   The Scholars dropped from 27 points in 1953 to 6 in 1954. This single-season drop was the largest in the league’s history at the time.

-   Despite being a measly 5’4”, Columbia Alumni’s Gregory Kirk led his team in scoring.

-   There was a reported incident during the season where an unnamed referee intentionally knocked down a Boston player, though he made it look accidental. Despite hollers from Boston players, there would be no punishment.